


mending bones

by JoJolightningfingers



Series: uncut, unpolished [8]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Blood and Injury, Gen, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-14 22:09:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29178510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoJolightningfingers/pseuds/JoJolightningfingers
Summary: "I'm hoping twisted, but I'm guessing sprained. Just my luck.""Better than broken."Claude falls from his wyvern behind enemy lines. Dimitri and Edelgard rush to his aid.
Series: uncut, unpolished [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1816336
Kudos: 23





	mending bones

**Author's Note:**

> i saw a fanart for this scenario sometime in... september last year? and threw something together for it but never posted it. i found it again so here it is.

" _Dimitri!_ "

Edelgard's voice carries across the battlefield's din wound so tight with strain and panic that Dimitri's heart leaps up his throat in sympathetic fear. Many things happen in the handful of seconds that follow her call. Dimitri dispatches his opponent with a flick of his wrist and turns in the direction he heard her in, frantically scanning the boil of armor and arms for that flash of crimson he knows by heart. He locates it, focuses, locks eyes with her. Notices that she appears safe, uninjured, and swallows relief. Notices only after that that she's pointing at the sky and yelling something else at him.

And then she takes off.

Dimitri looks at the direction she goes, confused and full of adrenaline. Looks above that spot.

From the clouds, a snow-white wyvern is wheeling down unsteadily, clearly injured. Even as he watches, a drop of gold plunges earthward from its back like a saint's tear.

_Oh, no._

Dimitri hefts his lance without a second thought and follows the glow of Edelgard's Crest with his own tingling at the tips of his fingers. Time is of the essence.  
  
The throng of soldiers between them and Claude present an obstacle to them in the same way a sheet of paper presents an obstacle to a flaming arrow--that is to say, not much of one at all. Dimitri would feel a little shaken by how thoroughly he and Edelgard tear apart their opposition, were he not too full up with concern over their fellow royal. They punch their way through the front line and run breakneck for the woods where the wounded wyvern lists before dropping below the treeline out of sight. Edelgard curses under her breath, and Dimitri can only agree with the sentiment. Who knows how much time they have before the second wave arrives; they need to be in cover and make sure their wounded are too before they're found. His stamina is impressive, but not inexhaustible.

He breathes a little easier once he and Edelgard breach the forest's edge and get swallowed by the thick woods around them, but he's not about to drop his guard just yet. A place like this is perfect for an ambush. Edelgard's eyes flash here and there, hawklike and intense. Her grip on the haft of her favored halberd twists slightly.

"Should we signal him?" Dimitri asks under his breath, eyes ahead. "He may hear us."

"Not yet. He went down further in; wait a little while longer." Edelgard worries her lip briefly and soldiers on.

It turns out, they don't need to. Three hundred paces later, an arrow sings and hits the tree ahead of them, and Dimitri tenses for a fight. But when he looks, there's their missing friend.  
  
The first rush of relief is that Claude even survived the fall, and it's tempered by the knowledge that in order to do that, Claude probably hit several branches on his descent. He looks like it too; there's sticks in his hair, gashes in clothes, dirt on his face, a huge red bloom of blood soaked into his doublet around the twenty inches of wood sprouting from his shoulder. His breath is ragged with animal whines, and tears streak his cheeks. The pain must be hellish.

And yet on his face is a little tremulous grin threatening to slip any moment. "Hey guys," Claude says, clearly agonized, and his bow drops from nerveless fingers. He staggers a couple steps toward them before collapsing with a sharp noise.

Dimitri is at Claude's side first, and Edelgard not far behind him. "Thank the Goddess," he sighs, relieved. He and Edelgard gingerly help Claude to sit, wary of worsening his hurts. "We thought you'd been lost. We saw you fall and..."

"Well, no pun intended," Claude pants, slanting eyes sideways to the arrow shaft, "but we're not out of the woods yet. On my way down, I saw scouts head into the opposite side of the treeline. _Nngh--_ " He sucks air in through his teeth when Dimitri accidentally jostles the arrow and lifts his good arm to dry his eyes. "By now, probably a lot of soldiers crossing over. Reinforcements. You should hide me here and go back to warn the others."

"No chance," Edelgard says cooly, reaching for the hasps on Claude's light armor. She's more rattled than she wants to let on; Dimitri knows by the little lines in the corners of her eyes. He wonders if Claude can tell. "Someone needs to retrieve your wyvern. You'll need more than one of us for that."

Claude sighs, a little ruefully. "Ah, y'know, I wouldn't have minded playing the martyr, but... Really glad you said that."

"Claude," Dimitri says, helping Edelgard to loosen the straps. "Bodkin or broadhead. What kind of arrow?"

Claude winces as he moves. "Bodkin. I think. Hurts like hell."

"Edelgard," Dimitri starts, and she glances up halfway through undoing Claude's leather pauldron. "This will go easier if we have him braced against something. To that tree, over there?" He indicates a broad-trunked oak a few yards off, and she assesses it briefly before giving him a sharp nod.

"Agreed. Claude? Are you up to standing?"

"Well, let's see," he hedges, cautiously shuffling his legs until he's got his knees beneath him. With nigh glacial movement, he rises to his feet--favoring the side already injured. He tries to set some of his weight down, but hisses and abandons that immediately. "I'm _hoping_ twisted," he says with pale humor, "but I'm guessing sprained. Just my luck."

"Better than broken," Edelgard says, looking over his posture with some concern. "Moving you is going to hurt, no matter what we do. But... we'll try to be gentle." Claude swallows, looking as faint as Dimitri's ever seen him, and nods.

It is, as predicted, a bit of an ordeal. They support him as gently as they can, but there's no avoiding jostling the arrow inadvertently, or forcing a slight bit of weight onto Claude's ankle. By the time they have him sitting against the tree's trunk, Claude's shaking like a windblown leaf, sniveling in the quiet, helpless way of someone begging for the pain to end.

"Hold on, Claude." Dimitri's glad it's Edelgard speaking; her tones carry comfort better than his do. "Breathe in. Can you tell us how far it's in?"

Claude sniffs sharply and whines out, testing the steadiness of his voice. "F-far enough," he manages, trying valiantly to stay still as Edelgard finishes removing the armor in the way and moves on to his layered clothing. "Pretty sure the head- hit bone. Been feeling it s-scratching this whole time."

They'll have to be quick. "Sorry for this," he says to Claude, and reaches down to tear his shirts open around the arrow in one quick motion. Claude flinches, but doesn't make a noise.

"Rip the sleeves off," he suggests instead. "Should be long enough for bandages." Dimitri does it quickly, trying to keep Claude stable while he does it. Edelgard unbuckles one of her gauntlets while Dimitri shreds each sleeve into lengths; she strips off the glove beneath and presses it into Claude's hand. 

"Bite down on that," she instructs him. Her hand lingers in his for a moment, another of her gentle gestures. Claude looks sallow, and Dimitri feels something coil up uncomfortably in his throat. No putting this off any longer; they all know it. Claude wads up the glove and sticks it in, breathes in deep through his nose, and sighs slowly.

"I'll hold him," Dimitri offers, and Edelgard makes a little acknowledging noise. He pins Claude's arm flat against the oak by his upper arm, firm but (hopefully) not painful, and takes his other hand in his own. Claude gives him a quizzical look for a half second, but he doesn't say anything; just slots their fingers together and tests the comfort of his grip.

Dimitri's fingers are less likely to break than Edelgard's, when Claude's muscles go out of his control for those brief and agonizing seconds.

"On three," Edelgard says, bracing her bare hand against Claude's chest and taking hold of the arrow near the skin with the other. Claude tenses, the line of his jaw going rigid. Dimitri feels him relax, slowly.

"One."

Claude squeezes his hand and shuts his eyes, but all of them hear the uptick in his breath.

"Two."

Edelgard jerks the arrow out, as if uprooting a sapling.

Claude howls long and loud, curving in on himself in reflex. The glove smothers it, keeps it down in his throat, but it's still not an easy noise to hear. His grip turns crushing on Dimitri's hand. every inch of him excruciatingly seized up. Dimitri squeezes his hand back, swallows thickly.

"You're okay." Edelgard's throat works around the empty solace, her pale eyes wide and focused. "Keep breathing, Claude. Almost done." She drops the bloody shaft (Dimitri is relieved to see the arrowhead still on it, glad it came out whole and they wouldn't have to torture him further by removing the head separately) and snatches up a strip of cloth, working it into shape and plugging it into the wound. Claude jerks in Dimitri's grip to little avail, his stifled screams hoarsening to wracked, nasal sobs.

Dimitri doesn't trust himself to speak without a waver until Edelgard is halfway through wrapping Claude's shoulder in struck silence, and Claude himself has turned to whimpering softly, more in memory of the pain. His hands have come unclenched at last; Dimitri lets go and checks to make sure Claude didn't injure him (or himself, on his armor) and sighs out deeply. "Nearly there," he says to nobody in particular--could merely be that he's fortifying himself, if not the others. His fears are at least in part assuaged by how small the spot of blood that seeps through the makeshift bandages is. It'll probably hold for longer than they thought.

Claude takes the gag away with shaking fingers when Edelgard is finishing up, makes one last soft, pained grunt when she tugs the knot tight against his skin. When her hands come away from him and take the glove back, he slumps like a marionette with cut strings. " _Shit_ ," he whines, drawn out and raw. Dimitri carefully, awkwardly, pats between his shoulderblades.

"We should go soon," Dimitri says, glancing up. "Find your wyvern. Leave as quick as we can."

"Agreed." Claude's voice is quiet, but full of resolve.


End file.
